Send in the Clonus

Rating: Null/10 (23 July 2011)

This movie was a complete ripoff of the 1979 movie "Parts: The Clonus Horror". Except that apparently the writers didn't think all that much of ripping off someone else's idea and not giving them credit, leading to lawsuits and hilarity.
Of course, this being Hollywood, they engaged in a lot of sanitizing that gave it a happier ending and made the concept less horrifying. (Clones are grown full grown rather than being raised from babies.) But the premise is so similar the ripoff was obvious. A farm is growing clones to serve as backup organs for the rich, powerful and famous. Ewan McGregor plays both the clone and the jerk he's serving to back up. So the first half of the movie is pretty much straight ripoff.
The second half is dumbed down, action movie schlock, like we've come to expect from Michael Bay.
But what irritates me is that they sanitized the ending. In the original, it's a rather dark ending, the hero is recaptured, harvested for his heart and the rest of him is put on ice for other organ transplants. His girlfriend is lobotomized. In this one, they survive their donors and McGregor takes over the other guy's life.
Okay, the original was made on the cheap and not very good actors. But it had a message about how science can be used for evil. This one, meh, we need a happy ending. It's Ewan McGregor.